The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may or may not constitute prior art.
Motor vehicle engines produce torsional vibration that is undesirable to transmit through the powertrain and driveline to the motor vehicle. Typically, a torsional isolator or damper is used to isolate or reduce the torsional vibration transmitted from the engine to the transmission. The torsional damper can be placed within a torque converter between a torque converter lock up clutch and an input shaft of the transmission. Known torsional dampers use one or more springs to store energy and to dampen an energy transfer path between the engine and the transmission. However, in certain powertrain configurations such as in engines which have or temporarily operate fewer than four pistons, known torsional dampers are insufficient to isolate the torsional vibrations given the design space. For example, in engines using rolling cylinder deactivation strategy, and in engines which may be temporarily operating as few as two pistons, a substantial increase in vibrational magnitude and periodic torque amplitude occur which known spring design vibration dampers are insufficient to isolate, thereby requiring improvement over known vibration dampers.
Accordingly, there is room in the art for a powertrain having a vibration damper that reduces torsional vibration over a broad range of vibrational frequencies.